


The Patient Search and Vigil Long

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: picfor1000, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-03
Updated: 2007-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:37:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was after dark, but before moon-rise, when Charin came to rouse her from the bed where she couldn't sleep. "Teyla?" she said softly, "Where is my Teyla-bird?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Patient Search and Vigil Long

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Cate for betaing.

It was after dark, but before moon-rise, when Charin came to rouse her from the bed where she couldn't sleep. "Teyla?" she said softly, "Where is my Teyla-bird?"

At first, Teyla pretended to be asleep, curling up beneath the blankets, squeezing her eyes tight shut even when she felt Charin's fingers brush the hair back from her face. "Teyla?" Charin said again after a few moments. "Are you awake, little one?"

Teyla tried to keep up the pretense, but Charin had that terrible skill of all grandmothers, who know when children are feigning sleep to avoid chores, or a scolding, or a sudden call to help with striking camp in the bright cold of early morning. "Perhaps?" Teyla said eventually, opening one eye and peering up at her.

"Perhaps," Charin smiled down at her. "Well, _perhaps_, if you _are_ awake, you would like to come with Shechin and I, to sit vigil?"

Both eyes flew open, grew wide, and Teyla sat straight up. "To sit vigil? Really? With the grown-ups?"

"Well, it is late," Charin said, brow furrowed as if reconsidering, "and I am sure if you were busy sleeping, you would prefer your nice warm bed to sitting around in the cold with a bunch of silly old women, chattering and drinking tea—"

"No! I am awake!" Teyla scrambled out from beneath the covers, across Charin's legs, and hopped to the ground. In a few moments, she tugged a pair of trousers and a sweater on over her sleepwear, and Charin watched her small fingers struggle to pull a woollen cap on over bed-tangled curls. "See, dressed, too!"

"That is a nice hat, Teyla-bird," Charin said, "and very nice trousers, and a _very_ warm sweater, but do you think they will keep your toes warm, too?" The smile on her face became a broad grin as she watched Teyla realise that, bundled up as she was, she had not remembered to put on shoes.

Teyla sat down on the ground with a thump, trying to work a pair of scuffed leather boots on over multiple layers.

"Will you need your coat as well?" Charin rummaged in the chest which stood at the end of the bed, finally pulling out the padded patchwork coat which Maran had made for Teyla only a few months ago. "There may be rain tonight."

Teyla froze a little, before shaking her head and saying "No, I will be fine"; only a little, but Charin saw. She saw, and tried not to sigh. Teyla was doing very well, considering, and it had not been long since Maran was taken; but she still refused to talk of her, or use things which reminded her of her mother, and Charin knew from the smudges under eyes that sleep was still not coming easily. It had been worse these past few nights, with Tegan away on the first full hunting trip since the Culling.

Charin also knew better than to say anything; Teyla would speak, but in her own time. There was a streak of stubborness in the child which would make it dangerous to push too much, too quickly.

Instead, she settled for taking Teyla by the hand, bringing her from the small huddle of tents that was the Emmagan encampment, towards the centre of their makeshift village. With so many away—excited teenagers paired with adults whose delight in the Hunt had long since been dulled by long and sometimes painful experience—the central meeting area was quiet, and the fires burned low. The young were mostly in bed; only the pregnant and the injured and the elderly stayed at the fire, to make small-talk—or larger talk, as required—and to keep watch, to wait.

Charin walked over to the central fire and sat down next to Shechin who, nursing two fine twin boys, had also stayed behind. They exchanged low words of greeting while Teyla sat down between them, looking around her with wide eyes at something she had heard much of, but never seen before.

All around the fire, people were keeping vigil; in front of each group of two or three was a small collection of candles. Opposite them, a single candle in front of Aonna represented his daughter; to Charin's left, Tarin had taken responsibility for a bright cluster of nieces and nephews and cousins.

Teyla leaned into Charin's side, and Charin smoothed a hand over her hair, bright in the firelight, before opening her coat and letting Teyla burrow under it, seeking out warmth. Together, they watched the flames, until Teyla stirred against her.

"Which one is Papa?"

"Do you see that tall one, there at the edge?" She could feel Teyla nod against her side. "That is your father, leading your cousins and your brother in the Hunt, just as he leads all of us, every day."

"And if his candle stays lighting, he will return safely?"

"That is what we believe, Teyla-mine. As long as the flame stays alight, and the family keeps watch until dawn, the Ancestors will watch over us, and all our hunters will return home safely."

"Mama didn't come back," Teyla said abruptly.

Charin took a breath—she had been waiting for this—but Teyla said nothing more. "No child, she didn't," was all she said in the end, was all she could say. "She didn't."

Teyla shuddered against her hard, once, as if holding back tears, or great anger, but stayed silent; and when Charin looked down at her, she was asleep, her face pressed into the bright cloth of Charin's shirt, mouth soft and slack.

Charin turned back to the fire, and held her close. "She was my daughter, too," she said to the flames, to no-one in particular. "She was my daughter, and I miss her." Shechin pressed her arm gently, before standing up and moving away, leaving her to her vigil. Charin kept watch til morning.


End file.
